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5:30 PM ET, January 31, 2008

Techmeme

 Top Items: 
Saul Hansell / Bits:
Spectrum Auction: C Block Hits Reserve Price  —  A bid of $4.7 billion this morning for the most valuable group of wireless licenses in the Federal Communications Commission auction for 700Mhz spectrum pushed the price over the minimum price the government set.
RELATED:
Michal Lev-Ram / Techland:
Google gets its way with new wireless network  —  Somewhere in the Googleplex, Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt are celebrating right about now.  —  That's because the Internet search giant Thursday scored its first big win in the mobile business: The minimum $4.6 billion bid …
Eric Bangeman / Ars Technica:
Open access for all: prime 700MHz Block C hits reserve price  —  After 17 rounds, the 700MHz spectrum auction has finally hit its one of its most closely watched targets: bidding on Block C has surpassed the Federal Communications Commission's mandated $4.638 billion reserve …
Saul Hansell / Bits:
Spectrum Auction: The C-Block Bidding Stalls at $4.7 Billion  —  UPDATE: This post was wrong in saying that rules prohibit anyone from bidding higher than $4.7 billion for the C Block.  There are some rather complex ways that another company could in fact raise the bid in coming days.
Thomas Ricker / Engadget:
700MHz auction exceeds $10 Billion, open-access just one bid away
Discussion: Electronista
Tim Coulter / Joyeur:
Twitter and Joyent: Update  —  By David Young 31 January 08  —  Twitter has been officially off Joyent since 10PM last night.  This may come as a surprise to some after yesterday's posts here and here regarding the two companies working together.  Those of us at Joyent appreciate …
RELATED:
Twitter Blog:
We had a rough night.  But now we're back.  —  I just left the office, at 6am, with most of our engineering and technical operations team.  That's only a handful of people, but we were all there all night.  —  You may have noticed we had an outage last night/stretching into this morning.
MG Siegler / VentureBeat:   Twitter's struggles harm more than just the users
Yahoo! Finance:
Google Announces Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2007 Results  —  MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG - News) today announced financial results for the quarter and fiscal year ended December 31, 2007.  —  “We're very pleased with our performance this quarter,” said Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google.
RELATED:
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Google's quarter falls short of expectations; Social networking not monetizing well  —  Google on Thursday reported fourth quarter net income of $1.21 billion, or $3.79 a share, on revenue of $4.83 billion, up 51 percent from a year ago.  Excluding charges Google reported earnings of $4.43 a share.
Discussion: paidContent.org and eWeek
Doug Sherrets / VentureBeat:
Google's Marissa Mayer: Social search is the future  —  At an event in August, Marissa Mayer, Google's leading VP in search, said social search hasn't shown much promise, but if it does, Google would be in a good position to incorporate it.  I wrote about that here.
Amazon.com:
Amazon.com to Acquire Audible.com  —  Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), today announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire Audible Inc. (NASDAQ:ADBL).  —  Audible.com is the leading online provider of premium digital spoken word audio content, specializing in digital audio editions of books …
RELATED:
Larry Dignan / Between the Lines:
Amazon.com buys Audible; March into digital content distribution continues
Chris Williams / The Register:
‘Facebook fatigue’ kicks in as people tire of social networks  —  Shhh!  Can you hear a hiss?  That's the sound of naughty facts deflating the social networking balloon a tad.  —  Whisper it, but numbers from web analytics outfit comScore have confirmed what the chatter in bars and cafes …
Ernesto / TorrentFreak:
Pirate Bay Admins Charged with Assisting Copyright Infringement  —  “The operation of The Pirate Bay is financed through advertising revenues.  In that way it commercially exploits copyright-protected work and performances,” said prosecutor Hakan Roswall in a statement.
RELATED:
Eric Savitz / Tech Trader Daily:
Gartner: Apple To Double U.S., Europe PC Share By 2011  —  Apple (AAPL) will double its share of the U.S. and Western European PC market share by 2011, the research firm Gartner said today.  “Apple's gains in computer market share reflect as much on the failures of the rest of the industry as on Apple's success,” Gartner says.
RELATED:
Christy Pettey / Gartner:
Gartner Highlights Key Predictions for IT Organisations and Users in 2008 and Beyond
Discussion: Between the Lines
Agam Shah / Macworld:
PC makers to adopt chips used in MacBook Air  —  Processors specially developed by Intel for Apple's new MacBook Air laptop will soon be used by other PC vendors in systems, possibly creating competition for what Apple calls the world's lightest and thinnest notebook.
RELATED:
Tom Krazit / Crave: The gadget blog:
Lenovo, Fujitsu planning to use Intel's MacBook Air chip
Discussion: Electronista and Engadget
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Google, Facebook Battle For Computer Science Grads.  Salaries Soar.  —  Google and Facebook are fighting hard to hire this years crop of computer science graduates, we've heard, and ground zero is Stanford.  Most of the class of 2008 already have job offers even though graduation is months away.
 
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 More Items: 
Michael Arrington / TechCrunch:
Rumor: Yahoo To Announce Large Video Acquisition—Maven Networks For $150 Million.
Discussion: NewTeeVee
Jack Loechner / Research Brief:
User Generated Video Expects 34 Billion Views in 2008
Discussion: CenterNetworks
Mark Hendrickson / TechCrunch:
KickApps Wades into Ning Territory with Version 3.0
Nicole Lee / Crave: The gadget blog:
AT&T to launch a red Pantech Duo next week
Discussion: WMExperts
Robert Vamosi / CNET News.com:
RealPlayer named by StopBadware.org
Discussion: AppScout and The Register
Daniel Jalkut / Red Sweater Blog:
MarsEdit 2.1  —  It is with great pleasure that I announce …
Nate Anderson / Ars Technica:
Fixing US broadband: $100 billion for fiber to every home
Mark Walsh / MediaPost Publications:
CBS Mobile Chief: Wireless Industry Is Overwhelming Consumers
 Earlier Items: 
Henry Blodget / Silicon Alley Insider:
Google Q4 Earnings Preview: Meaningful Upside Expected
John P. Falcone / Crave: The gadget blog:
Apple TV: Best of the movie rental set-tops?
Darren Waters / BBC NEWS | dot.life:
PS3: Glass half full or empty?
Steve O'Hear / The Social Web:
OpenSocial should be renamed “OpenGadgets”
Erick Schonfeld / TechCrunch:
Meebo Turns Chat Rooms Into A Web Service
Jeffrey Silva / RCR Wireless News:
Class action nails T-Mobile USA over texting services
Nicholas Carr / Guardian:
The internet rewards the lazy and punishes the intrepid
 

 
From Mediagazer:

Caitlin Huston / The Hollywood Reporter:
Internal memo: Hearst Magazines president announces layoffs as part of a decision to “reallocate resources” to “continue our focus on digital innovation”

Jon Brodkin / Ars Technica:
FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel announced she will leave the agency on January 20; she was the first woman to be confirmed to lead the agency

Lachlan Cartwright / The Ankler:
Sources: MSNBC renewed Rachel Maddow's contract early this fall, but with a pay cut; MSNBC bosses' plan to shake up daytime and weekend programming

 
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